In chapter one of Protection for Hire , Elizabeth St. Amant is wearing some droolworthy gold shoes. I imagined them looking a bit like this—elegant, expensive, and completely out of place in a women’s shelter. The shoes are a reflection of Elizabeth herself—sheltered, from a wealthy family, but thrust into a new life and feeling out of place when she takes her infant son and runs away from her abusive husband. Elizabeth hires my heroine, Tessa, to protect her. But Charles, the lawyer who comes to their aid, happens to be the man who helped put Tessa in prison years ago. Tessa and Charles get caught up in a romantic suspense story with humor, danger, and faith. If you’re a fan of stories with sassy heroines, edge-of-your-seat action, and laugh-out-loud moments, you’ll love the world of Protection for Hire . It’s like your favorite rom-com collided with a high-stakes thriller—and those gold shoes are just the beginning. I love beautiful shoes but can’t wear them because I have flat...

After the craziness of the Kickstarter, I hope to put Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 7: Spinster  up on Amazon probably in the first week of March. I am currently working on a Christian contemporary romantic suspense, Year of the Dog , because it’s due for the multi-author anthology I’m in that releases in May, Danger in the Shadows.  I’ll probably post the chapters (including the annotated chapters) on my Patreon, but I won’t be able to give a free .epub copy to my paid subscribers since it’ll release in the anthology in May 2025. The chapters will be taken down in May, so be sure to read it while it’s still up on my Patreon. I’ve been posting my Christian contemporary romantic suspense, Protection for Hire , but there’s a chance I might pause it in order to post Year of the Dog , because I am realizing I’m not very good at juggling two contemporary projects at the same time. If I do pause it, I’ll start up again after Bento and Betrayal  is done, probably sometime in the...

Here’s the new cover for Protection for Hire ! I made the cover in Canva, and then my graphic designer rearranged the elements a bit and adjusted the filter so it would look more professional. What do you think of the new cover? The model actually looks a lot like my youngest niece! Since you voted for the Protection for Hire series as the contemporary books I’ll start posting on Patreon , chapters will start going up next week. I’m also going to try to annotate the chapters so you can read about Easter Eggs and behind-the-scenes tidbits about the book.

Thank you all for praying for me! My IBS is getting better, although I’ve had to eliminate more things from my diet. :( It’s so bland now, I was complaining to my mom that I should just eat rice and eggs. The good news is that I’m able to each mochi, and I’m thinking of making some for New Year’s. I actually found an old Regency recipe I had posted before, “Mr. Darcy Would Be Appalled White Soup,” can be easily modified for my IBS diet, so I made that a couple weeks ago. It was very yummy and perfect for our cold weather lately. If any of you know some good gluten-free recipes, please do send them my way! (I’m not actually sensitive to gluten, but I can’t eat wheat because it contains too much fructans, so essentially I have to go gluten-free.) As I’ve been feeling better, I’ve been able to get more and more writing done each day! I’m slowly progressing on Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 4: Betrayer . Even though my health has taken a turn for the worse thi...

The following is a mashup from my November Camy Tang newsletter and Camille Elliot newsletter which both went out this past Wednesday, but I thought it might be nice to post it on my blog, too. *** My health this past month has been like a particularly gruesome car wreck. I’ve had IBS flareups and also sinus headaches, sometimes both at once. I had really thought I had finally started to get control over my IBS and the foods that I need to avoid, but I made a few mistakes (didn’t read ingredients lists closely enough). The sinus headaches have been a little more frequent because of the change in weather here in California and the increased rain showers. I’m finally feeling better and continuing work on volume 4 of my Christian Regency Romantic Suspense epic serial novel, Lady Wynwood’s Spies . I started trying to train myself to write via dictation because once I get used to it, it’s supposed to be significantly faster, and it will help ease the workload on my hands and wrists...

I’m currently working on two projects, one a Regency novel and another a sort-of dystopian/near future series that I’ve felt God laying on my heart to write. The problem with the dystopian is that I have too many ideas! I wanted to do the third Protection for Hire series book as the start of my near-future world, but suddenly I had six or eight new characters appear in my head, each with their own stories. I’ve been writing my ideas down as I get them, but now I feel like I’ve been dissing poor Tessa and Charles because the other stories seem more interesting to me right now. I guess I’ll continue with my plan: to write the third Protection for Hire book as planned, and table these other characters’ stories. Or maybe I’ll introduce a couple of them in Tessa and Charles’s book? It’s actually been rather interesting to subtly alter Tessa’s old story world to mesh with this new dystopian world idea that God gave to me.

Several of you awesome peeps have emailed me and posted on my Facebook page, asking about the third Protection for Hire series book. Well, I’m working on it right now! Since Zondervan opted not to publish the third book in the series, I’ll be self-publishing this one. And since I’ll be self-publishing, I can do a little genre-bending. It’ll still have the same (twisted) humor and suspense/mystery, but it’ll also be a sort of “what if?” storyline. I’ve been calling it a Dystopian, but that’s not accurate—it’s not a far-flung future like The Hunger Games or Divergent , but more like a, “What if something catastrophic happens next week?” It’ll set the stage for more books in that “what if?” story world, which will be more like true Dystopian books. Why Dystopian? Because I stinkin’ love them!!!! I didn’t realize this until recently, but Dystopian and “what if?” storylines have been very popular in anime and manga for a long time, and that’s what I would watch and read when I...

I was re-reading Protection for Hire the other day because I’m planning to start work on book #3 in the series soon. Then I read the Fat Burger scene, and just could NOT stop laughing. I couldn’t believe I wrote that! Captain Caffeine looked at me rather strangely when I was sitting there giggling to myself but I couldn’t even stop laughing to explain to him what I was laughing at. And then when I finally could explain it to him, it just sounded dumb. Go figure. Anyway, here’s the scene, which was from chapter twelve (I think … correct me if I’m wrong since I don’t have a copy near my desk to check). Tessa, my heroine, is at her mom’s house with her client, Elizabeth St. Amant, and Elizabeth’s three year old son, Daniel (who owns a pink-polka-dotted stuffed dog named Slasher, which is a story in itself). Tessa has never had a great relationship with her older sister, Alicia, and hasn’t been much involved with Alicia’s 13-year-old daughter, Paisley, since Tessa was in prison fo...

I know, I'm waaaaay behind the times but we recently watched the last few episodes of this past season of The Sing Off (we had taped it on TiVo). I’m so excited because my favorite team won! It was so awesome so see 98 Degrees sing! I always liked how in their music videos they didn't quite seem to take themselves seriously. My favorite song from them was "Invisible Man" which to my teenage mind was just the Most. Romantic. Song. Ever. I dreamed of some hot guy pining after me, as unlikely as that was. I mean, seriously, who is going to pick some other chump over Nick Lachey??? So in A Dangerous Stage , when George sings to Tessa (and makes Charles a bit grumpy) in chapter 7, I had him sing “Invisible Man.” Because, you know, it’s the Most. Romantic. Song. Ever. Aren’t they just adorably cheesy????? Okay, ’fess up. Did any of you also have a secret fondness for 90s boy bands????

Those of you who’ve read A Dangerous Stage will recognize a new character I introduced in that book, Steven Nishimoto, who interacts with Charles a bit. My character Steven created the company Neesh, the most high-profile computer company in San Francisco. The profits from Neesh rival Apple. Steven is half-Asian (half Japanese), tall with the regal bearing of a prince. He’s lean, muscular, and athletic, with a shaved head and hazel eyes. He’s 55 years old, but he’s run 10 marathons and is in training for a new one after taking a hiatus from running for several years. When I was writing the book, I was groping for a name for this character and that’s when I decided to use the name of a young man I know from church, the “real” Steven Nishimoto! Captain Caffeine and I were youth leaders for the real Steven Nishimoto when he was in high school, and now that he’s out of college, he has taken over as youth director for our church youth group. (So basically, after we were his youth l...

A few weeks ago, my parents were in town and we went to Shuei-Do, a shop in San Jose Japantown that sells mochi and manju. Mochi is a rice cake made with sweet rice that’s been pounded into this sticky, slightly chewy texture. It can be a plain dumpling (my grandma adds it to soup for New Year’s) or it can be filled with a variety of things like sweet red bean paste (azuki or adzuki), sweet white bean paste, and even peanut butter or fresh strawberries. My family always has a mochi-making session before New Year’s so Grandma has mochi for the traditional mochi soup. Update: I found this video I’d made years ago of my grandma and my mom making mochi for New Year’s! Even though my grandma usually only ever made mochi in late December, there are some families who make sweet mochi (for snacks or desserts) throughout the year just like Shuei-Do and other mochi shops. So in a scene in A Dangerous Stage where Tessa is visiting Mrs. Akaogi, I have her making mochi. Mrs. Akaogi i...

Katsudon (tonkatsu donburi) Heather H. on Facebook asked me about this when she was reading A Dangerous Stage , and she suggested I blog about it, so this post is all because of her. :) Katsudon is a pork cutlet with a Japanese style "gravy" over rice. It's not what you'd think of as traditional Southern gravy, it's more like a lighter teriyaki sauce, which has eggs in it. Captain Caffeine loves this dish, which is one of the reasons it's in A Dangerous Stage . When I was writing the scene, I was trying to think of food for them to eat and this was the first thing to come to mind. This recipe is closest to what I envisioned when I wrote that scene in Nez's restaurant. Instead of dashi, I usually use beef or chicken stock, and for the cutlets, I usually use regular breadcrumbs, but if you have panko, then totally use that. If you ever get a chance to order this in a Japanese restaurant, it'll probably be a little more fancy, but it'll taste e...

I’m on Relz reviewz today! I’m doing a giveaway of A Dangerous Stage ! Go to Relz's blog to enter!

Source: tumblr.com via Camy on Pinterest In-N-Out, one of my fav burger joints, makes an appearance in the first chapter of A Dangerous Stage . It's a chain on the West Coast and Hawaii, I'm not sure how far east they have restaurants. They don't freeze any of their food, it's all fresh, including the buns and the french fries. When you order, you can see them use this french fry hand-crank machine to make their fries, it's pretty cool. The specific restaurant in A Dangerous Stage doesn't exist at that location, but there's a couple of them near me and I go there way too often than is good for me, but it's oh-so-yummy!

Source: sanjoseparks.org via Camy on Pinterest This is a nice picture of Almaden Lake park, which is where Tessa goes to in a scene in A Dangerous Stage . The houses in the distance are also the ones mentioned in the scene! Don't forget to pick up book 2 in the Protection for Hire series, A Dangerous Stage ! On sale now!

Source: jessica-alba-wallpapers-hot.blogspot.com via Camy on Pinterest When I wrote Tessa Lancaster in Protection for Hire, I envisioned her looking like Jessica Alba, especially for her fight scenes since I had watched the TV series Dark Angel. :) Don't forget to pick up book 2 in the Protection for Hire series, A Dangerous Stage ! On sale now!

How cool is this?! USA Today’s romance blog, Happily Ever After, gave a fantastic review of my latest Protection for Hire book, A Dangerous Stage ! Click here to check out the review ! And please be sure to comment and let the reviewer, Serena Chase, know that she rocks!!!!

I’m over at Diana’s blog today with a guest blog post about the televised singing competition in A Dangerous Stage ! Click here for the guest blog post!

I’m over at ChristiansRead.wordpress.com today talking about a recurring character in my books and recurring characters in general. Be sure to hop over to weigh in!

I gave an interview at the Avon signing at the RWA conference at the end of July and they just aired a clip of it on NPR! http://www.npr.org/2012/08/15/158699571/a-rainbow-of-happy-endings-in-ethnic-romances Update: Here's the link to the transcript if you can't do the audio: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=158699571